‘A student is bullied or victimised when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students.’

When considering the notion of bullying, traditional bullying tactics, and more importantly the emergence of cyber bullying in South Africa, statistics show of the learners being bullied, most (55.3%) experienced emotional bullying while almost one in every five (16.9%) experienced cyber bullying. The prevalence rates of personal bullying, bullying of peers and perpetrators of bullying have been described as follows:

Personal Bullying: 34.4%

Peer Bullying: 38.1%

Perpetrators of bullying: 23.3%

Traditional forms of bullying include: Physical, emotional and verbal abuse, with victims experiencing name calling, physical encounters, threats and intimidation by (mainly) younger perpetrators. Most bullying has been reported to take place off of school premises.

- (Olweus, D. 1993. Bullying at school: what we know and what we can do. Cambridge, MA: Wiley Blackwell.)

Current research highlights various factors or attributes that may contribute to victimization, which include jealousy and physical appearance which in turn makes young people extremely vulnerable to the various forms of bullying.

Cyber bullying is predominantly practiced through the use of SMSs and social networks accessed through cellphones. It primarily includes name calling (48.0%), rumors and gossiping (49.0%) and the use of upsetting messages. Most learners have indicated that the prevalence of bullying in general (67.7%), and in particular cyber bullying (40.3%) has increased over the past two years.